...Which is to say that - like it or not - if your company isn't involved in Social Media in some way, what are you waiting for? I hope not a pink slip.
But what can you do with Social? What's the point of it? How is is useful?
Here are four of the main things you can do with Social, in order of sophistication:
1. Listen.
2. Broadcast
3. Repair
4. Build
1. Listen. If you aren't using Social Media to listen to what people are saying about your brand, you're way way WAY late to the party. Fortunately, this is something you can do easily and with no exposure at all. Just open some anonymous accounts online - I'd start with my favorite medium, Twitter - and take a look at what people are saying about (a) you (b) your competitors (c) your favorite brands. In other words, start learning. Now!
2. Broadcast. In other words, you can use Social to get the word out about your company, just as you've been using print and broadcast media to do for generations now. This comes with a caveat, however: those companies that blare their message and fail to interact by fostering a genuine community don't get much traction. That's why I'd call broadcasting through Social immature. It isn't very social.
3. Repair. Restore. Soothe. In other words, use Social as another - necessary, highly effective - channel for putting out your brand's fires. People complain online all the time. Tap into where your customers are, and put your most talented customer service stars online to respond to their problems and complaints.
4. Build. Build what? Build community. Build your brand. This is where the magic is! This is where the potential, the fun, and the payout, is for savvy companies. It requires intelligent brand-ambassadors to establish, maintain, and grow your brand in the instant-paced give-and-take of Social. But if you look at the pioneers of Social Media, you'll notice it is already working wonders for their brands. For some, Return On Investment is already clear. For many others, it's in the pipeline.
Most of all, make sure it's fun! Because that's the number one rule of business: if it isn't fun, you're doing it wrong.
Oh, and of course the underlying rule of all business: if it isn't profitable, it isn't business. At least not for long. Social is all about the long-term payoff, which we'll cover in future posts.
*****
This is the first of a periodic series on the uses of Social Media in this new, exciting century. Stay tuned for more, because this barely scratches the surface of what can be done with a savvy Social effort.
Note: What have I left out? I named this "The Four Stages of Social," but maybe I was premature. Perhaps a more accurate (though less compelling) title would have been "Four of the Ten..." or some such. Please let me know!
Excellent post Ted. A couple of quick comments:
ReplyDelete- Listening is definitely the right starting point. Consider also using free tools like Google Blog Search and Social Mention to go beyond Twitter-only listening.
- You touch upon this point but I would say it explicitly. Broadcast, while a common starting point, will fail if you do not engage too. Once you start broadcasting people will start asking you questions. Be prepared to LISTEN and RESPOND.
Great start, looking to reading more.
John
Enjoyed the post, and all four areas deal with different aspects of customer engagement. For me, though, there is one area that is often overlooked and influences how a company approaches the four areas you write about. And that is the mindset or culture of the company itself. If a company is closed, then the likelihood is that its approach to social will also be closed and limited. If it is an open company, then its approach to social will be far more open to ideas and able to truly engage with its customers.
ReplyDeleteOpening a Twitter account or providing a support page via Facebook, will not suddenly make a company social or open. Without understanding what type of company you are in the first place, may make your social journey all the more challenging and fraught not only for you, but for your customers as well.
Ted,
ReplyDeleteIn terms of what might have been left out, as I re-read your categories, I think I see it as more a matter of what is explicitly called out in your four versus implied.
So, what came to mind where: engage, collaborate, co-create, share, learn and innovate among others. That being said, I think these are activities that can nicely fall into your four buckets. As John indicated in his comment, engage occurs throught listening, responding (and broadcasting for that matter). Collaboration, co-creation, sharing, learning and innovating can all be activities within "repairing" or "building". So, interesting angle. You've managed to capture broad enough categories that are collectors for many of the tacitcal activities that add value for a social business.
And to Guy's point about culture...yea. It's all about that. Social business is, in my opinion, more about culture than any other strategic category. If you don't have or can't create a culture condusive to the collaborative nature of social business, there is no way to fake it.
Interesting post, Ted, and great comments.
ReplyDeleteA nice way to start a new series of posts!
With regard to the four stages, I'd prefer to call them "listen, talk, help and engage/build", where the latter can be the result from mastering the first three stages and opening up for customer input.
I'd prefer "talk" to "broadcast" since (mere) broadcasting can do more harm than good, as you argue. Talking to your customers is perfectly fine if you also talk with your customers. In the end, talking with customers will probably even have more effect. The power of unmarketing…
I'd prefer "help" to "repair" since putting out fires is still very reactive, and since there will always be a new fire if an old one is not even extinguished. If you can talk to and talk with your (target) audience, you might as well reach out and offer proactive help. We could argue that offering proactive help falls in your fourth category, but I would reserve that one for the 'serious' social stuff mentioned by Barry: collaborating, co-creating, learning and innovating with customers.
With regard to choosing channels, I fully agree it's good to start small. However, rather than picking a channel of my choice, I'd prefer picking the channel of my customer's choice. It will be much easier to listen to, talk and engage with my (target) audience if I know where to find them.
Which brings me to Guy's excellent addition: a company's social strategy should be in sync with the company's culture. If a company is truly customer-centric and social, its social media star will shine in front of many people. If a company is not, it will fail in front of the whole world. To me, social media is like a giant stage. Success or failure, however, will not only depend on the performance on stage. It will be largely dependent on the performance backstage.
I enjoyed your post, Ted, and I look forward to reading the rest of the series!